AN ‘INCOMPETENT’ Birmingham hospital doctor has had his named erased from the medical register for the second time in three years.

AN ‘INCOMPETENT’ Birmingham hospital doctor has had his named erased from the medical register for the second time in three years.

Dr Om Parkash Arora, who worked at Heartlands Hospital, was banned by the General Medical Council(GMC) in 2008 but had the decision overturned in an appeal to the High Court.

Arora has now been struck off at a review hearing on June 1 by the GMC after working under conditions for the past seven years.

Dr Arora, formerly of Burney Lane, Alum Rock, was a clerical assistant in the genito-urinary medicine department at Heartlands in 2003 when he was found to be incompetent at everything from emergency treatment to diagnosing patients, record keeping and confidentiality.

The doctor, who also worked as a prison medical officer and GP in Wandsworth, London, also failed a knowledge test on surgery, getting half the questions wrong. He was made to work under supervision, which continued after he won the High Court appeal.

At the latest hearing, the GMC found Arora, who has not worked for five years, was not safe to be a doctor.

“The Assessment Team concluded that whilst Arora expressed a willingness to retrain, he had not demonstrated he was able to learn and not improved sufficiently to return to medical practice,” said a GMC spokesman.

“The Team raised patient safety issues of resuscitation and recognising and diagnosing cancer early. The unanimous view was that Arora is not fit to practise at all.”

The Panel said Arora should be banned because of a risk of him doing serious harm to others “either deliberately or through incompetence”.

Arora said he had found it difficult to get a medical job due to conditions on his registration, which he considered unreasonable.

Despite failing two attempts to pass an assessment of the London Deanery last year, Arora did not consider his professional performance to be deficient due to efforts he had made to keep his medical knowledge up to date with lectures and internet learning.